Book Review | The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

The Willows is a novella by Algernon Blackwood

Two friends are midway on a canoe trip down the Danube River. Throughout the story Blackwood personifies the surrounding environment—river, sun, wind—and imbues them with a powerful and ultimately threatening character. Most ominous are the masses of dense, desultory, menacing willows, which "moved of their own will as though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the horrible."

"The Willows" is one of Algernon Blackwood's best known short stories. American horror author H.P. Lovecraft considered it to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature. "The Willows" is an example of early modern horror and is connected within the literary tradition of weird fiction.

I've been sharing my journey with Lovecraft lately, but the story that brought me back to Lovecraft was Algernon Blackwood's The Willows. I wasn't planning to review The Willows, but it turned out to be such an awesome read I decided it really needed to be shared.

What struck me while reading The Willows was how much Blackwood's writing reminded me of H.G. Wells'. So much so that as soon as I finished reading The Willows I did a search to see if there were any essays comparing their work. What I found was Blackwood and Wells were friends. I don't know how that influenced their writing, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.

In The Willows, two friends are taking a canoe trip up the river, and the rough water forces them stop for the night on an island among the willow trees.

The build up of tension (not to mention the personification of nature) made this an awesome read for me. I can't wait to dive into more of Blackwood's work in the future.

I was able to get my copy of The Willows free in the Kindle store. It's also available on Project Gutenberg and other places you can typically find these old classics.

9/10: Highly Recommended

Book Review | The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells

The Island of Dr. Moreau is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells.

Book Description

Ranked among the classic novels of the English language and the inspiration for several unforgettable movies, this early work of H. G. Wells was greeted in 1896 by howls of protest from reviewers, who found it horrifying and blasphemous. They wanted to know more about the wondrous possibilities of science shown in his first book, The Time Machine, not its potential for misuse and terror. In The Island of Dr. Moreau a shipwrecked gentleman named Edward Prendick, stranded on a Pacific island lorded over by the notorious Dr. Moreau, confronts dark secrets, strange creatures, and a reason to run for his life.

While this riveting tale was intended to be a commentary on evolution, divine creation, and the tension between human nature and culture, modern readers familiar with genetic engineering will marvel at Wells’s prediction of the ethical issues raised by producing “smarter” human beings or bringing back extinct species. These levels of interpretation add a richness to Prendick’s adventures on Dr. Moreau’s island of lost souls without distracting from what is still a rip-roaring good read.

Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None was not the only classic I thoroughly enjoyed reading last week. I also had the immense pleasure of reading The Island of Dr. Moreau.

I'm apparently a huge fan of H.G. Wells. I absolutely loved The War of the Worlds the first time I read it, and last year I was blown away by The Time Machine. I picked up The Island of Dr. Moreau because it's on my reading bucket list, but at this point I need to declare H.G. Wells as one of my favorite authors of all time.

The Island of Dr. Moreau actually reminded me quite a bit of The Time Machine. Both are a retelling of the main character's journey to a strange place with strange inhabitants.

There is no better combination than science and horror, y'all.

8/10: Great Read

My Favorite Books Read in 2013

Where did 2013 go?! It was an awesome, albeit stressful, year for me. With a new baby and a new home, it's all a bit of a blur, but I did read quite a few awesome books this year. Most of them were not published this year, but that's how it goes.

In no particular order:



The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (Review)

This book surprised me, and I still think about it all the time. It's a great mix of science fiction and horror. If you've been passing it by, consider giving it a read.



Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch (Goodreads)

This is the second book in the Locke Lamora trilogy. I love when a series only gets better.



Charlotte's Web by E.B. White (Goodreads)

THIS BOOK. This book is now forever in my favorites of all time. READ THIS BOOK.



NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (Goodreads)

My FAVORITE book of the year. I was seriously blown away. If you need something epic to read... NOS4A2.



The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente (Review)

This first Fairyland book was a beautiful and imaginative read. If you love books like A Wrinkle in Time, I highly recommend this book.



The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett (Goodreads)

The Spark was my favorite non-fiction read of the year. I judged the hell out of the mother the whole way through, but I was so captivated. I could not tear myself away from the pages.



Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill (Review)

Dreams and Shadows was another surprise read for me. It was a really great dark urban fantasy. As soon as I'm done with this Harry Potter reread, I'm diving into the sequel to this gem.

Thank you so much for spending another year with me. I appreciate each and every person who takes the time to read my blog. I hope 2013 was an awesome year for you, and I hope you will join me in 2014.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells | Book Review

I read The Time Machine as part of my quest to widdle down my reading bucket list. It appears on both Flavorwire's 50 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novels That Everyone Should Read and NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction And Fantasy Novels.

Book Description

“I’ve had a most amazing time....”

So begins the Time Traveller’s astonishing firsthand account of his journey 800,000 years beyond his own era—and the story that launched H.G. Wells’s successful career and earned him the reputation as the father of science fiction. With a speculative leap that still fires the imagination, Wells sends his brave explorer to face a future burdened with our greatest hopes...and our darkest fears. A pull of the Time Machine’s lever propels him to the age of a slowly dying Earth. There he discovers two bizarre races—the ethereal Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks—who not only symbolize the duality of human nature, but offer a terrifying portrait of the men of tomorrow as well.

Published in 1895, this masterpiece of invention captivated readers on the threshold of a new century. Thanks to Wells’s expert storytelling and provocative insight, The Time Machine will continue to enthrall readers for generations to come.

Review

The Time Machine was a very unexpected read for me. By unexpected, I mean awesome. The Time Machine is not the first book by Wells I have read. I loved The War of the Worlds when I read it. I was actually surprised by how much I loved that one, too, since I had seen the 1953 movie a few times and had an idea of what I would encounter.

I will jump right to the best part of The Time Machine - it was a scary read. I assumed it would be all science fictiony, maybe a little boring at times. No. The Time Machine made me down right giddy as a reader. The time traveler in The Time Machine goes almost a million years into the future, and Wells offers a lot of consideration towards how humans will evolve and why. It's an amazing read for something published in 1895.

I need to quit making assumptions before reading anything by Wells because apparently I'm a huge fan.

Another thing I really loved about The Time Machine was seeing exactly where pop culture gets its representation of time travel today. We see it all of the time in movies - the days and nights and the scenery progressing around the person doing the time travel. Wells describes it so perfectly in The Time Machine, it's become a standard mechanism for displaying time travel on the screen.

There are so many reasons I would recommend The Time Machine so if you are interested in scifi, horror, or simply classics in general, The Time Machine is a quick, surprising read. It's in the public domain so you can download it for free pretty much everywhere. I think The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds are the only two books I have read by Wells, but I have got to change that. The Island of Dr. Moreau is on my bucket list as well so I will be reading that one next.

9/10: Highly Recommended